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Provided that it survives bankruptcy, General Motors plans to build a small car somewhere in the US. The General has stated that it is investigating three sites to build the yet unnamed vehicle; Janesville, Wisconsin; Orion, Michigan; and Spring Hill Tennessee. GM previously announced that all three facilities would close, though it subsequently said that one location would ultimately reopen.

GM hasn't publicly laid out parameters for picking which plant will produce the new vehicle(s), but the state of Tennessee says that the biggest requirement is money. Governor Phil Bredesen reportedly told The Tennessean that GM has asked for at least $200 million to stay in the game, characterizing talks with the General as "Tell me how big of a check you're going to write." We're not talking tax breaks, either, as Bredesen is quoted in the article as saying:

"They don't care about tax credits and those other kinds of things...it certainly was a new look for me at how they're approaching this thing, which is absolutely, 'Tell me how big of a check you're going to write.'"

GM isn't talking about its specific requirements for the small car plant, saying that the talks are "private discussions." Officials from Michigan and Wisconsin are following suit, but Tennessee is taking a different stance. Bredesen says the state doesn't have the kind of money that GM is asking for, and he told The Tennessean that "this is not a year in which I've got a spare couple of hundred million dollars from the rainy day fund to use for something like this."

GM has not yet come up with a timetable for announcing the winner of the small car facility sweepstakes. Thanks for the tip, JayP!